//------------------------------//
// Chapter 1: Typical Day in the Northern Waste 
// Story: Pearlwort, Unintentional Villain 
// by Halira 
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Hello, my name is Pearlwort, Pearl for short, a Thestral mare you may or may not have heard tales about, and this is my confession. 

I am writing the history of how a six-thousand year old civilization came to an end, and the part I played in that. I will tell you everything as I remember it, though I am writing this nearly two centuries after the fall. The great realm I was born into may be gone, but I survive.

Survival is my talent you see, and with me it is taken to great extremes. However, if I didn't have that talent then the Twilight Realm would have not fallen, millions of ponies would not have died, and we would not live now in a world of constantly warring nations.

You must be patient to understand, it was a combination of elements that led to the end, and many of them started small. The dangers of each were not always obvious.

Forgive me, I can't help that my talent is survival, and I am truly sorry it cost so many others their lives.


***



I pulled out my compass to check my direction again. A task I did every few minutes as it was easy to get turned around out in the waste. On a clearer day I could make out the mountains in the distance and know what way to go based on those familiar cliffs. However, today was not a clear day, a storm was threatening and I needed to make it back to town before the storm hit or risk being trapped in snow. I could survive the cold, but it didn’t mean I wanted to risk being trapped under several feet of snow and slowly starve to death.

Unfortunately, a survival talent is not full proof against everything,.

I couldn't risk flying with the wind picking up either. The wind would either smash me hard into something that broke bones, leaving me helpless, or throw me so far off course that making my way back to town would be impossible. It was rare that my wings ever did me much use out here. I would happily have traded them for a Unicorn horn or an Earth pony's strength. Heck, I would trade them for a set of Pegasus wings especially since those were at least feathered and could provide some measure of warmth. Cold might not be able to kill me on its own, but by Tartarus it was unpleasant to feel my webby bat wings flecked with frost, ice, and snow.

With my current haul of crystals I likely would be set for several months. The traders didn't give us what the crystals were actually worth, but they still gave us a fair number of bits. If I were the type who felt comfortable travelling south and trying to find buyers myself I could likely have long since been set for life with what I had already discovered over the years, but typically any Thestral that walked into an area to trade, unless they were wearing a guard's uniform, was unlikely to get much more than a, "We aren't interested in whatever you are selling.” Life just wasn’t fair sometimes, but I couldn’t complain too much. I still made more than enough bits to keep myself well fed and happy.

I started forward again, and after a few minutes came to a halt. Off in the distance to the east I saw a dark shape. It was clearly not a tree or rock outcrop as it was moving, albeit slowly. If it were a beast it likely would be moving much faster, and wouldn't allow me to have sight of it. This left two possibilities:

First, it could be an undead as they moved slowly and didn't have enough thought or cunning to think to hide their location which meant they were of little threat to the town, as they tended to come by themselves making them easy to dispatch well before they got close enough to cause any trouble. Out in the wastes, though, they were much more threatening. They typically came upon lone travelers and were strong and capable of overpowering most creatures on a one on one fight if they caught you without warning. Some ponies liked to call them zombies. Zombies were monsters in stories that tried to eat brains. You could have some sympathy for a zombie. It was just trying to eat. Undead didn't eat. They just killed. And second it was possible that it was another scavenger like me who was lost and struggling with the cold. If that was the case, and I didn't help get them back on track, they likely would die out here.

So what to do? Do I risk it being an undead and try to fight the thing? It wouldn't take me by surprise. My most effective fighting involved attacks from above, snapping their necks, and then finishing off the abominations by smashing in their skulls after their bodies were rendered useless. That kind of technique wouldn't work with this sort of wind up. I wouldn't be able to control my dive if I could manage a dive at all. I could very well end up breaking my own limbs, which would only serve to put me further at risk. The alternative would be trying to sever the thing's spinal cord with my fangs. That was a lot harder to do, since it involved me having to avoid the undead's grip and getting on its back all at the same time. Screw that up and I would be ripped to shreds and special ability or not, there was no surviving dismemberment.

On the other hoof, it could be another townspony or townscreature. I would feel so much guilt if I left them out here to die if that were the case. If they were frostbitten, possibly out of their senses, they would certainly travel slow; which made the danger of the approaching storm that much worse. But I have always been a type who couldn't stand to leave another to their fate, not if there was a chance I could help.

"Pony feathers," I cursed, decision made. I turned towards the dark lumbering shape and started making my way towards it.

After a minute or two of travel, the shape paused and I could make out its bright glowing green eyes. There was no mistaking those necromantic lights. I wasn't dealing with some stray traveler. This was definitely an undead, and it had definitely seen me now. Undead didn't give up their hunt once they had caught sight of a living creature. They had some deep need to kill any living thing they happened upon, as though to punish said living thing for having what it did not. They didn't even eat what they killed, just murdered for the sake of murder.

"Bloody bucking pony feathers!" I didn't care if the creature could hear me or not. It had already seen me and was pursuing. It was doubtful it could hear me anyway over all the wind. I didn't know if they could even hear to tell the truth. The thing was still lumbering slowly towards me as I considered my options again.

I could just make a break for it, and try to run all the way back to town. The town watch could then easily dispatch the abomination when they caught sight of it. Problem with that was that I am a notorious klutz, and would likely trip and fall if I tried to run. Which might result in a broken or sprained leg, and would slow me down enough to enable the undead to catch up to me, before I could make it to the safety of the town. And to make matters worse, I doubted I had the stamina for such a run, even if there wasn’t the chance I’d trip at some point along the way. Running wasn’t an option at all. Which only left one.

I would have to take the thing down here. Which meant I would have to sever its neck, since the wind was still much too fierce for me to take to the air and get above it for my preferred method. I really didn't look forward to biting it, the very idea of it made me want to vomit. I have no problem with biting into something, taking a predator down, or even hunting. I had done that for years; hunting birds and squirrels during lean times when I couldn't find or afford proper farm produce. It was a common belief that Thestrals were part pony and part bat, but a more accurate statement might be that we’re a mixture of pony, bat, and wolf. We are omnivores, and we don’t get our ability to hunt from ponies or bats.

So, I got myself mentally prepared to confront the monster. I tried to channel my inner predator as much as I could. I am not exactly sure how one channels their inner predator properly, but my method basically came down to me repeating in my head "think wolfy thoughts.” I am again not sure if this is the most effective way of doing this sort of thing; but it was the method I had developed long ago, and for better or worse it was the best I could do.

The undead and I were about twenty pony lengths from each other now. I began to try to circle it on the ground trying to turn to keep its eyes on me in an attempt to slow the thing down further. If I kept moving this way it was unlikely to gain any ground on me. I couldn't just circle it indefinitely though. I took the time to examine my prey---or hunter, depending on how you viewed it. It was a disgusting sight to behold. The skin looked like the worst frostbite you could imagine, the eyes glowing green bits of fire, and green necrotic blood was frozen on the thing in too many places to count as well as chunks of rock and dirt that didn't just cake it, but seemed to be actually embedded in its body. There was no mane to speak of, and its tail was hairless so it looked like a dried-up rat tail. It might have been a pony once. But now it resembled nothing of the sort.

"Think wolfy thoughts Pearl," I said to myself, trying to further prep myself to attack the thing. The undead would definitely be able to hear me, if it was capable, at this range. Not that it mattered, there was no intelligence or understanding in it, so it had no idea I was trying to goad myself into an attack. It was just intent on murder. Its thoughts, if they could be called that, began and ended with that simple concept.

I hastened my movements making it much more difficult for the thing to follow. When I got a clear shot, I sprang forward with a leap trying to get on its back, and the hopefully unprotected neck. I didn’t give it nearly enough credit. The thing lashed out with one of its hooves, sending me hurtling a good distance away.

I was slightly dazed, but not enough that I was incapacitated. My side hurt a lot, and it was bleeding and bruised, but it wasn’t major. Nothing seemed to be broken from what I could tell, but I wouldn’t know for certain until I could get to a doctor. On the plus side, the thing could apparently knock me farther than it was capable of quickly getting to. So, it still was trying to lumber towards me. I got up despite the pain, and began my circling again. I would have to get it right this time. I likely got lucky that it had only been able to swat me aside instead of being able to grab onto me. If it got a grip on me I would surely have been a goner.

I had to get a better judgement of what it was capable of, but I couldn't take too long. The injury I had sustained might heal with time but it might cause me to have problems with my attack if a muscle locked up as a result. And time was running out with the storm continuing to build. I didn’t have time to waste.

After a good bit of circling, I tried again. This attempt it couldn’t bring a hoof up in time to defend itself and I landed on its back, wrapping my legs around it to get a good grip. The creature bucked much more than I thought it would, and I found myself struggling to get a good angle to bite on its neck while it did everything possible to throw me off. It might have been comical to some bystander that a pony was trying its hardest to stay on the back of another bucking pony. There was nothing funny about it though. If it bucked me off it likely would finish me off in short order. I was already hurt so half its work was already done for it.

I finally went for the back of the neck. Throwing my full strength into the move. Success! The flesh tasted worse than I had imagined, and I hoped I didn't swallow any of the putrid stuff. I gripped as hard as I could with my jaws, trying to sever the spine. It kept bucking frantically, but I was locked on it now. Thestral jaws are like vices; once we have a deep penetrating bite not much can knock us loose.

I felt the bone beneath my teeth. I kept applying pressure down on it as hard as I could. Finally I heard the sound of a crack beneath my jaw as something gave way before the clear sound of bone snapping filled the air. The undead dropped like a rock to the ground. It was over.

I fell away from it, keeping well clear of its head. The body might be out of commission now, but those eyes still locked on me, its mouth moving as if trying to somehow bite me with no way of actually reaching me. It was like it had no comprehension that its body wasn't working anymore. I got up and stared at it for a long moment. How did ponies come to this? It wasn't some virus as just about every pony in town would have had it by now, given how often these things came down on us. Were they the remains of unfortunate townsponies that died out here in the wastes, or the remains of the long-lost ponies of the tribes from long ago? Perhaps they were something that was from beyond the wastes further north that just wandered aimlessly this far south.

I gave those thoughts no further time. I reared up and brought both my hooves down on the creature's skull, crushing it like a piece of fruit against the frozen ground. Whatever the creature was once, it didn’t matter now.

I forced myself to puke just to make sure nothing from that bite ended up in my digestive tract. After taking a moment to recover from my retching, I resumed my journey. The storm was much closer now and I had wasted valuable time. Plus, I was hurt which would only serve to slow me down. I pulled out my compass again to check my position before returning it back to my life-pack. I altered my course to face the south and took off again, leaving the necrotic corpse for the storm to bury.